I Dream of Shepard
by Lessandra
Summary: To deal with the Reapers, Cerberus wanted to bring back a savior. But when their test subject awoke, her mind was a blank slate. What it's like to wake up to a life where you're a praised hero that people's lives are dependent on and not remember anything? AmnesiaAU


**1. Awakening**

I awoke in an ocean, confused, disoriented. I was floating; or, perchance, I was sinking. I felt nothing around me, not a tug of stream or gravity; just a swirling fall. And I couldn't breathe.

Lights circled around me in buoyant dance. They were stars, singing to me the wisdom of the universe. I strained to understand their words, to lose myself in their song… Almost. I was so close. But the sound of air blocked their voices, and with every breath I took the song dimmed. It held purpose I yearned for. I wanted to hear it. I stopped breathing.

I dissolved into emptiness, the song and the dance of the stars driving me mad. Before my very eyes a star was caressing her planet with golden glitter, warming it for my touch.

I was descending into a vast field of white. It would be my tombstone; my birthplace; my deathbed.

I was a grain of sand; I was an atom, watching the birth of a star and a death of a planet; I was a person, I was merged with the galaxy; I was empty. I was _pastpresentfuture_. _Who_ was I? I could not recall. It mattered not, for the stars sang to me.

I listened to them and the intricate pattern of the universe came together before me. I listened as their light filled me and understood life's meaning. I listened and knew everything.

I was a lone traveler in the vast realm of stars.

It had to be heaven for spaceflight was fiction, a deeply rooted dream gained from stargazing that an earthling could never achieve.

I couldn't be in heaven for I believed in no afterlifes.

_(I was in open space, my air support torn._

_I knew nothing. I burnt.)_

Then I died.

* * *

I awoke to a white room of fiberglass and metal. I saw brightness and darkness while my breath came in sharp white flashes and my heart beat like a frightened pyjak's, thumping fast and terrified in my chest. I couldn't breathe and I needed to. I knew nothing of what was going on.

Voices surrounded me, speaking a tongue I knew, but none of the words were making sense, none able to penetrate the sound that roared at my eardrums like the ocean, low and vast and thralling. With it came a memory of stars and burning, inside and out, and sinking and heaven, none distinct, and they slipped past my grasp in a breath.

I was aware, sometime, someplace, distantly, of tubes choking me, of needles in my veins and hands pressing me down, fearfully and urgently. Lamplight lashed through the rising red tide of my vision.

"Don't try to move. Just lie still, try to keep calm."

It all fell away then, as a voice, incorporeal but unrelenting, penetrated my daze, anchoring itself into my soul and drawing me to life. I didn't recognize until then that a part of me was seeking starsongs and empty spaces and death. The voice was tying me to this world.

The fog lessened; I blinked and saw a face swimming into focus. I knew I didn't believe in heaven, yet there was an angel at my bedside. Her hair fell loose, rippling in blue-black waves, her eyes were the color of pale-blue sky fulfilling my need of stars with their steadfast gaze. I tried to raise my hand and touch her, half sure my fingers would flow through her like mist. She caught my wrist with her hand, warm and tangible and real, and guided it down, gentle but firm.

"Breathe for me. Live," she repeated in a whisper. She seemed wistful. I didn't know why; didn't know if I should have been sad with her. She smiled at me then, and I felt safe.

My veins filled with something heavy, slow-burning. Drowsily, I saw the angel look up, anger twisting her brows and I no longer understood her words.

Then all went black.

* * *

I awoke, startling from the bed with a hungry gasp for air, like someone who's been underwater too long. My waters had been of dreamscapes, but the dream was already escaping. There were no visions in my head, no presence at all — just an unending void, a lingering sense of something lost.

I couldn't recall what it was. I couldn't summon up the last time I was cognizant. There were flashes: of fire and metal and a deep rumble that resonates through your bones; of snow and blood and starlight; of muffled screams and soft whispers and songs. The wave of it discombobulated me utterly. I gripped my head, trying to pry my eyes open and see something past the blinding whiteness.

Someone was speaking to me, a female voice, cold like steel and seemingly familiar, like that song that you suddenly remembered a tune to but failed to recall the words; like something you had heard in a dream. "Wake up, Shepard," she called insistently. "This facility is under attack."

My vision was clearing and I began to catch flashes of my surrounding. A med-bay or a hospital, all teeth-achingly white; a monitor, its screen dead; a clock display, its time blinking at 0:21 (I had to wonder if it was the actual time, or a power shortage twenty minutes back). There was a dried-up IV bag, its proboscis still connected to my arm — I tore it out in panic and ire. As I gulped and inhaled, I felt thin tubes on my face too, plugged in my nostrils, the ones that help you breathe. I tore them off as well.

Through the glass pane I saw pipes of oxygen, torn and lit, so instead of gas they were emitting fire. I saw bodies, blood on the glass. The flashes in my head had to have been images my optic nerves had been receiving as I had been trying to crawl out of my deep sleep, not the memories of the past. It was all here: the metal and the fire, the whiteness and the blood, the screams, barely audible through the walls and glass.

"Hurry, Shepard, you don't have time to wait around!" the voice persisted, boring into my consciousness again. I ignored it, concentrating on the pain surging through my body as I moved my limbs. "There's weapon and armor in the locker on the other side of the room."

I dangled my legs — or tried to, because each movement was agonizing. My muscles were sore, asleep; I felt a thousand invisible needles pierce my calves and thighs and I kept still, waiting for it to pass. I had no idea how long I had laid on that bed — weeks? months? — but it had been long enough for them to slowly begin atrophying. As the pain dulled, I slid down, holding on to the rack that hospitals hang the medicine bags on. I was dressed in hospital garments that hung from me loosely in an undignifying manner. I felt like an invalid, and everything in me revolted against such an image. Leaning my whole weight against the rack I tried to stand up. I nearly succeeded, but on the first step my knees gave way and I crumbled down on the floor uselessly, swimming in the gown like an overturned bug.

"Help," I tried to speak obsoletely. My voice was hoarse, scratchy like sandpaper. I had an inkling no one would answer. What had the woman said over the intercom? The facility was under attack. It was up to me to get up. Thankfully, the more I moved, the more my body seemed to remember that it was meant to do other things besides lying still on the hospital bed, aching. The legs still swayed dizzily and after the first two steps I ran into a table with instruments, hitting my hip. I grabbed the wall, trying to find my footing. My tongue and throat were parched, it had hurt to speak before. I tried looking for water, for a door to a restroom. There was none.

"Shepard." There was that voice again. This time I was glad for it, glad not to be alone in a strange place. "I know you weren't ready to wake up yet. Your scars aren't healed properly. But I need you to get moving, we are under attack. We don't have much time, so try and pull yourself together. Grab your weapon and armor."

A sheen of sweat broke on my back as I realized: the voice had been addressing me all this time. My pulse raced like mad, and I gripped the table I was standing by tightly, till my knuckles hurt. In all the confusion and dizziness I hadn't thought of it at all, but now the feeling of emptiness and something lost weighed on me twice over. I was the one lost, the _**'me'**_ inside this body. I didn't even know my own name. Didn't recognize it when it was spoken to me. 'Shepard'. It conjured no images in my mind, no associations. I strained to remember something, anything, but there was inhospitable alien darkness in my head, empty of knowledge, of meaning, of faces and connections. I was a nobody, my memory stripped of me, and the weight of it crushed me.

I couldn't tell you how long I had stood there, motionless, heart racing, gripping the table. If the voice had called to me, my ears hadn't heard it. I suddenly hated the speaker for making me know just how far the trauma of whatever had brought me to the med-bay in the first place extended. The glass behind my back started cracking under the heat, breaking me out of my reverie, and clumsily I stumbled to the locker and opened it. A set of simple clothes of black and white waited for me there. I struggled with the pants longer than I would like to admit, my legs still shaky and disobedient. Taking in the armor I knew it was too heavy for me, I wouldn't get far in it, so I passed it and looked at the pistol dubiously.

She said the weapon was mine. I wasn't sure if it meant it had belonged to me before, or if it was a spare she was suggesting I should take. I didn't know if I was supposed to know how to shoot or not. The grip felt familiar, the weight of it in my hand comfortable. Hesitant, I aimed with both hands and pulled the trigger. The pistol clicked emptily and I lowered my hand, looking at the pistol disheartened. What good was it to me, if I couldn't remember how to use it?

I looked around in search of a camera, a possible mike. My eyes fell onto the omni-tool integrated into the armor's vambrace. Picking up the piece alone, I strapped it inelegantly on my left forearm, flicking it to life. Taking the helmet, I ripped the fabric inside of it, removing the sown-in earpiece and held it close to my left ear. "Can… Are you hearing me?"

"Yes, Shepard. I can hear you," the woman sounded relieved that I was finally responding and showing signs of intelligent activity.

"I can't wear the armor. I'm too week. And the weapon…" I paused reluctantly. What was I supposed to say? I forgot how to shoot, whoops?

"There's no thermal clip inside," the voice said helpfully, breaking my discouragement. "Forget the armor. Just go."

I didn't have to ask where: there was only one door. I headed towards it slowly, my limbs still achy, sluggish. A mech was waiting for me outside. I had the good sense to take cover — or, rather, stumble behind it and fall down gracelessly. The earpiece that I had been pressing to my ear fell, and whatever advice the woman on the other end had for me became indecipherable. Unperturbed, the mech was shooting at the glass I was cowering on the other side of.

My reaction was pure instinct, no coherent thought behind it. I peeked at the machine, half-considering to throw my pistol at its head and make a run for it; it shot again, and as I ducked, I threw my arm forward, as if chasing away a fly. A part of me must have hoped for the omni-tool's defense systems to kick in. It didn't happen.

The bullet hit the glass, and I winced hearing it start to crack. But as I opened my eyes, I saw, quite stunned, that the mech hung suspended in the air, waving its arms helplessly. Straightening up, I stared at it, than down at my hands stupidly. Tech master I was not, but apparently I was a biotic. I didn't remember that either. What else did I know and not remember, what unrevealed skills and talents lay behind my façade? The thought gave me another pause as I realized I didn't even know what I looked like. My hands were light, honey-colored, and from the corner of my eyes I glimpsed strands of auburn hair, nothing more. I wondered where I was from? Earth? Terra Nova? Colonies? Apparently, the knowledge of geography of the sky was perfectly intact in my hand, just not my place in it.

The mech collapsed onto the floor, shaking me back into reality. I looked around, and light reflecting brightly off one of the shelves drew my attention. Looking closer, I deduced (from whatever archive of weapon knowledge that was stored in my head like an inaccessible corrupted data cluster) that it had to be the said thermal clips. Grabbing one, I popped it into the bottom of the pistol and shot at the mech just as it was raising its arms to do the same. I spent six shots before it short-circuited and made a spectacular explosion that easily made the height of my short existence as it was now: I didn't know what had exulted me in the past, but this small victory certainly did.

Looking at my hands I knew with a certainty: even if I didn't remember how to shoot, my hands did, and they didn't lose their aim. Checking the pistol I saw it had six bullets left. Shielding my face I extended my left hand to the side and spent the remaining shots into the wall and let the empty clip disengage and fall onto the floor. Grabbing the full clips from the shelf, I filled the pistol with five to its capacity, before continuing on.

Up the stairs was another door, the only one in this room as well. Then an elevator down, a turn to the right. I thought a run through the fires might kill me and I leapt through only after much hesitation, having little faith the noncompliant legs would carry me through fast enough. They did. There were rooms with multitudes of scans and graphs that I didn't stick to look at: a second was enough to know I was no scientist and couldn't read them, and they provided no clue into the locked mystery of my brain.

My persistent companion abandoned me along the way, her helpful directions and pep talk for me to hold out a little longer turning into white noise at some point, leaving me uncomfortably alone. I tried to make sense of the facility's layout on my own. The corridors were straightforward enough for me to navigate: the doors on the sides all led to more labs with no exits, some were locked, and my apparently rudimentary knowledge of the omni-tool let me achieve nothing when I tried hacking a few of them open. A few turns shortly turned out to be dead-ends, and in the end there was one root only left for me to follow.

Up another flight of stairs I heard shots that surprisingly uplifted me, because it meant I found another living person to help me make sense of this nightmarish maze. For a second I dared to hope it was my faceless conductor, but the voice behind the door was decidedly male. It mattered not. He was human, that was enough to let relief flood me.

I almost ran up the stairs, as fast as my stagnant legs allowed me, and then, looking around, I felt nauseous. Not from the speed that strained my indolent body, and, oddly enough, not because to the left of me lay a corpse, plastered against the broken glass, mouth open, so I could count every bloodied tooth. Not from any of that, but because to the right of me, behind the glass wall, I saw open space. Endless, all-consuming, merciless.

We were on a space station, and the thought made my knees tremble, bile rise in my throat. I was shaking violently, sick to my stomach, bloodrush deafening in my ears, and I turned to face the other way promptly, hanging on the railings for dear life. I didn't know why, but the image of space mortified me, left me paralyzed with fear, nonfunctional, muscles trembling in terror, heart hammering against the sternum. The male voice kept shouting indiscernible taunts at the enemy behind the door. On shaky legs, my back turned to the open space, I half-limped half-crawled to the door and pushed the interface to open it, stumbling inside, a lubberly bag of bones, panicked and useless.

The man looked around at the noise that I'd made, wearing a stunned expression at the sight of me. "Shepard?" I managed to pull myself to him into the cover, glad that his apparently was a friendly face. "What are you doing here?"

I might have had less memories than a five-year old possesses, but I had enough wits about me to know that springing up on strangers the fact that you're a completely vulnerable amnesiac is not a good strategy. Especially when under fire. Diplomatically, I said, "Someone woke me up. I have no idea what's going on." Which would have been a fair response even were I perfectly aware, I assumed.

I struck true. "Sorry," he winced awkwardly, "I forgot this is all new to you. I'm Jacob Taylor." Ah, what luck — we weren't acquainted, either. "Miranda must have been trying to get you off the station — she's the only one who'd try." And thus the voice of the mystery woman was matched with a name. _Miranda_. Like caramel, the middle syllable stretching leisurely, viscidly on my tongue.

"Look," Taylor turned his head to me, both of us being pressed with their back to a glass barrier, "how about we deal with the mechs first? I'm a biotic, just like you, so feel free to fire a few detonations and hit them with a good stiff. As soon as we're in the clear, I'll fill you in."

Seemed like a fair deal, and I nodded. The part where my dossier was common knowledge was less encouraging. I wondered what else he could know about me that I didn't. Peaking around the barrier I attempted a few shots at mechs, but missed considerably. Apparently, my aim had more to do with luck than remembered skill. Not to mention that the exhaustion of my body was letting itself show. Forgetting the pistol I tried using the ability that came more naturally to me: extending my arm abruptly, I tossed one of the mechs at the wall. Its little metal head cracked against the concrete with a beautiful smash, dying with a doleful buzz. With a satisfied sigh I tried to repeat the feat, but succeeded only in pulling the mech up. Taylor saw it, however, and pulled the last one up to follow, smashing them together skillfully and exploding their little mechanical bodies into harmless pieces. I smiled at him, which seemed to take him by surprise, and I schooled my expression and stood up.

"So." I looked at him meaningfully, mindful of his promise. "Ready for debrief."

The word rolled off my tongue without a conscious thought, oddly familiar, reminiscent of gunfire, metal and orders screamed at the top of one's lungs. Had I been in the military? Seemed likely, but I had no way to be sure.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Taylor saluted me in accordance with my thoughts, but even that wasn't a confirmation enough — perhaps he merely was military himself. "I don't know why we were attacked or who's behind this. Woke up to a bunch of explosions myself; next things I know every damned mech in this hellhole is shooting. At us. I can tell you one thing, though. Hacking all those mechs? Had to be an inside job," he finished gravely.

I looked at him expectantly, but he was clearly waiting for my questions, careful not to say too much, or maybe trying not to blabber too eagerly. "What's your story, then?" I ventured, reckoning it a safe question.

"I'm a lieutenant with security. Answer directly to Miranda. Alliance record, ma'am, but quit when politics put too much red tape on us. Was supposed to safeguard the facility," he looked around with loathing, a great deal of it directed at himself. "Shows how prepared I was. Truth be told, haven't fired a gun outside of target practice for eighteen months."

I nodded almost dismissively — I was sure he was an agreeable sort of person, but at that moment I didn't care for his service record. "Who's Miranda, then?" I asked with more curiosity than the situation warranted, though I wasn't sure why she interested me so.

"Miranda Lawson," he gave me her full name, "is the head of Project Lazarus. She runs this facility and she's the one with all the answers."

Frowning, I probed carefully, "What answers would that be?"

Jacob looked suddenly uncomfortable, his gaze flickering up and down, between being cast to the floor and looking at me again with uncertainty. "I'm really not the right person to be debriefing you, Commander, but I can imagine how confusing all this might be to you, so I'm gonna just rip the bandage off, okay? Give you the quick version?" I waited with bated breath. "Your ship was attacked, and you were among the casualties. The Alliance declared you KIA, the whole galaxy thinks you're dead, and you were. Dead as dead can be, just meat and tubes when they first brought you here. The science team at Project Lazarus has spent the past two years bringing you back to life. You've been comatose this whole time." He paused. I remained in stunned silence, my eyes glazed over. "I'm sorry," he added, unnerved.

I gave him one jerky nodded, trying to analyzing the information, and sat down on the nearest bench. Commander, Alliance, KIA — check. I _**had**_ been in the military, after all. Had had a ship under me too. (I exhaled, bemused.) And unless this was all an elaborate insane product of my sick mind, I had died two years ago and was raised from the dead. With a faulty memory, as it happens. This confabulation seemed oddly… plausible. At least it certainly explained why I remembered nothing at all. They brought back a clone, a shell of a body, but whatever information had been supposed to be inside that brain of mine, hadn't quite uploaded as planned. The hard drive was empty.

"What was it, cloning? Cybernetics?" I asked, just to check.

"I honestly don't know, I'm no scientist. I'm pretty sure you're not a clone," he attempted a lopsided grin. I didn't return it, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably. "What I know is that the sole objective was to bring you back, as you were; same personality, same memories. We needed _**you**_, Commander Shepard." I scoffed grimly, but made no comment at his questioning look. They'd failed, obviously, but he didn't need to know that.

"Anything else you can tell me?" I asked hopelessly, not sure how much information of this kind I could take.

He shrugged. "What do you want to know? Ask away."

Ah, back to the trick question. I didn't want to admit to anything just yet, not before I was somewhere safe, which was a tall order in itself, because I didn't know whom I could trust, where I could go… "What's the quickest way off this station?" I asked finally.

Taylor smiled — it was an easy enough question. "The docking bay is near, but I don't know where the mechs are thickest. Probably best to stick together, right?"

He was not quite interrupted, as both our omni-tools came alive as he was finishing his sentence. "Check. Check. Anyone on this frequency? Anyone still alive out there? Hello?" a hoarse male voice was saying desperately.

"Wilson?" Taylor frowned, a flicker of recognition in his face. "It's Jacob. I'm here with the Commander." I winced at the rank — it felt like a suit that didn't fit, that was too small and choked me. "We just took out a bunch of mechs over in D wing."

"Shepard's alive? How the hell did that happen?" the man sounded discouragingly incredulous. "Never mind, get out of there, both of you. As far as I can see, the service tunnels are clear — go through them and to the network control, I'll wait for you there."

"Roger that, Wilson," Jacob nodded and looked at me. "You ready to head out?"

I nodded dejectedly, still too flabbergasted to care. He had the good sense to comprehend my state of mind to keep silent and show the way. The way Wilson had suggested was the opposite of being safe, crawling with more mechs. I hardly found trouble in it, shooting at them with a singular, single-minded kind of vehemence, taking out all my pent-up frustration at the incomprehensive metal.

The part of the facility Wilson was leading us into had a far more twisted layout than the root Miranda had set me on originally. My heart misgave me, no logical reason for that; my head was spinning and I allowed Jacob to take the lead once more. He took us to the network control fast enough.

"Over here," someone hailed us from the floor of a dimly lit room. I twisted around to see a middle-aged man with an utterly plain unmemorable face, yet it seemed oddly familiar. In flashes I recalled half a dream of whiteness and pain and tubes and a monitor that measures heart rate, recognizing it now as not a dream but a memory of having woken up in the med-bay some time ago. He had been there.

"I remember you," I whispered, stunned, before checking myself. "You were…"

"Yeah," he replied ungraciously. "I was one of the people working on you." He glanced up and down my body, and I felt suddenly self-conscious, realizing that having been dead, and in a state that Taylor had described to me, they had to have restored my skin from scratch. Meaning he'd seen every inch of me. And his look was decidedly undoctorly. "How about you help me up first?" he demanded. "Bastards got me in the leg."

"Shepard, grab the medi-gel from the station on the wall," Taylor nodded towards the far wall, kneeling beside his colleague. Shaking off the ugly feeling the man had given me, I went there and filled my omni-tool full, before returning to patch the wound on Wilson's legs up. I didn't meet his eyes and backed away as soon as I was done, letting Jacob get him up.

"Thanks, Shepard," he dropped invectively. "Guess that makes us even." Turning to Taylor he ignored my existence altogether after that. I found I didn't care. "I thought I might shut down the hacked mechs," he explained. "Whoever did this fried the whole system. Completely irreversible. We should just get out of here."

"Yeah," Taylor nodded. "But we should get Miranda first, we can't just leave her behind."

"Forget her," Wilson was prompt to discard her, painting himself less and less likeable to me. "she was over in D Wing, the mechs were all over that sector. No way she survived."

"A bunch of mechs won't drop Miranda," Jacob disagreed with confidence for which I was entirely grateful. "She's alive."

"Then where is she?" Wilson countered with belligerent sliperriness. "Why haven't we heard from her then? Face it, there are only two possible explanations: she's either dead, or she's the traitor."

"Then why did she wake me up and try to lead me out?" I asked serenely. In my mind, free of any burdens, I saw a clear picture: Miranda ran the facility, I was the only possible outcome of her project. There was no sense in her sabotaging her own work, destroying the steps of the process to prevent recreation, if she meant to save me along the way. Two steps were mutually exclusive.

"Okay," Wildon consented grouchily. "Maybe she's not a traitor. But that doesn't change the fact: she's not here. We can't scour the facility for her, we need to get out of here ourselves."

And that, despite my growing antipathy to Wilson, was an undeniable factor. I looked away, discontent with leaving my immaterial savior behind, but there was little I could do.

"Look," Taylor interrupted, sensing my displeasure. "Things are getting tense. If I tell you who we work for, will you trust us?"

I honestly couldn't say so I said nothing, staring at him. A part of me waited with curious anticipation, another knew the revelation that seemed to matter to the man so much would hardly make a difference to my empty mind.

"This isn't the best time, Jacob." Wilson, it seemed, had his own reservations, which made me slightly more inclined to listen.

"We won't make it if she's expecting a shot in the back," he responded soberly.

Wilson just waved his hand dismissively. "You want to piss of the boss, it's your ass."

I listened to the exchange, slightly more than puzzled, waiting for someone to fill me in and hoping against all reason that it would illuminate this strange situation more.

"The Lazarus Project, the team that rebuilt you," Taylor spoke gingerly, stepping over the words as if navigating a minefield, "it was funded and controlled by Cerberus."

There was a beat of silence, as the two men watched me, each with his own level of reservation, one sulking and the other one hopeful. I felt eternally tired: I had no idea what this all was about. "Should I recognize the name?" I responded finally, judging the wording passive-aggressive enough.

Taylor frowned. "Hm, maybe it's a side effect of pulling you out so early… You and Cerberus certainly have a history." That was just great. My mood plummeted and suddenly I wanted to punch him in his kind understanding face. "You wiped out several of our research bases. We… had a falling out of sorts with the Alliance," he danced around this particular topic with special care, but I was too tired to be nitpicky and allowed him to carry on promptly. "But things change! They declared you dead and would have put you in a coffin, they gave up — Cerberus spent a fortune to bring you back." I listened with an expressionless face, waiting for him to relieve his soul's burden. He could have spoken untranslated salarian for all I cared — his words were too vague for me to care.

"Look, I'd be suspicious too, but right now we have to work together," he implored me. "I just thought you deserved to know what's coming: once we're off the station, I'll take you to the Illusive Man myself and make sure he'll answer every question you have. I promise." He said it very seriously, like a military oath. The effort was wasted on me at that point.

"Are you done?" I asked coolly. "I don't care who brought me back or for what purposes. I just want to leave here before starting sifting through all this garbage."

Taylor looked underwhelmed at my reaction, almost disappointed at my dismissal. I couldn't say for sure why I didn't just want to come clean and admit I was damaged goods. The first-hand knowledge that the facility was under attack was incentive enough to want to get out of here. The plan after that point dissolved into mist. Could I really leave? Where would I go? Earth? No one was waiting for me there with an eagerly extended helping hand. Arcturus station? Yes, Alliance Command seemed more likely — declarations of death aside, at least they were the people who gave my life purpose. Perhaps they would care to give me another. The problem was that I didn't even know where I was at the moment, or where I could get the money to get anywhere. For now I just had to follow my sullenly silent Cerberus companions.

Whatever secrets that thought they were keeping from me, they were right when they said the docks lay near. Two corridors in, we finally emerged in a vast room, filled with shipping containers. My heart leapt at the sight of a shuttle silhouette. Unfortunately, the room was also filled with mechs, that powered up as soon as we entered.

The first three were easy to deal with (and I was really getting a hang of shooting the gun so that I'd actually hit something at least half the time), but as we came upstairs, we were ambushed from both sides. Adrenaline spiked in me as I stumbled back and into Wilson, who pushed me away in irritation and overloaded two mechs to our right immediately in a boastful alpha-male display. Mustering up my courage I stepped forward again, my mind zooming into focus. Nothing existed but me and the enemy.

I wasn't quite sure how I was doing it, how the biotics worked — how do you will something to happen? But as I concentrated, mass effect fields danced around my extended arm, and the mechs flew. Some I managed to crash against the wall, the others were tossed over the side of the bridge's railings, finding their death at the bottom of the lowest level. One I managed to crush in on itself as tin can, which made me especially proud.

Taylor and Wilson still were better at this, of course. Taylor concentrated a mass effect field around himself, shielding himself from bullets, which I immediately regretted that I hadn't thought of, and his throws were more powerful than mine — compared to him I was a twelve-year old who just found out she has the talent; I stumbled awkwardly over my powers and my pulls and throws were like doll-playing. Wilson on the other hand had extensive understanding of tech to short-circuit them with his omni-tool from the distance. He was also a much better shot than I.

But neither of them seemed to notice my lack of skill, though. Jacob even gave me a favorable smile of encouragement. Perhaps I hadn't been as good a soldier as I first assumed — after all, I had died, hadn't I?

Regardless, with the last of the mechs dead, the path to the shuttle was clear.

"We're almost there," Wilson announced eagerly, beating me to the door and punching in the code. "Let me just open it, and—" he fell silent as the door slid open, revealing a person standing nose to nose to him. "Miranda? But you're supposed to be…"

"Dead?" she finished his though with sarcasm the same second she pulled the trigger, her face contorted with rage verging on disgust. Here she was, the owner of the voice that had guided me out of the med bay, who had overseen my cloning-resurrection-whatever-they-wanted-to-call-it. I peered at her with hungry curiosity, something in me becoming still, like a child awaiting Christmas. Her face was familiar to me, and I recognized in her the woman from the same horrid dreamstate when I had first awakened prematurely. I wondered briefly how long ago had that been exactly.

I remembered that in my drugged state I had thought that she was my guardian angel. It wasn't hard to see why: her skin was like alabaster, and her hair so true a black it gleamed blue. Her eyes were two sky-colored sapphires, a hue that the gemstones would envy. Her beauty was too perfect to be real, a thing that poets would write ballads about, endless and transcendent. She was staring back at me, an amused smirk on her lips, as if she knew exactly that she was being admired.

"What the hell are you doing?" Taylor's vulgar expletive broke my reverie, and I promptly dropped my eyes onto Wilson's dead body.

"My job," Miranda quipped nonchalantly. "He's the one who sabotaged the security system, killed my staff and was planning on offing us." There was a note of pride in her voice, a sense of duty fulfilled, offense avenged.

"Why would he do that?" Taylor spoke with much regret that shamed me, for I didn't feel sorry for him in the least. In the core of me I had suspected him of wishing me ill, but to mourn his death was still a human thing to do. I hoped that it was the day's events that stunned me so, and not that the cloning left me heartless. I knew already that Jacob was kind-hearted. I hadn't thought that I was not. "We've known him for years. What if you're wrong?" he stared at her accusingly.

She tossed her chin and gave a small condescending laugh. "I'm never wrong. I thought you'd have learnt that by now," she chided him.

"There _**was**_ something about him…" I relented quietly. "Deceit."

"Good instincts," Miranda shrugged, hardly impressed, but still divulging a compliment.

"Still, did he deserve this?" I stepped away from his bleeding corpse. "Maybe you could have questioned him."

"I don't need him alive to know the truth," she shrugged dismissively. "And even if I did, he wanted you dead and I've put to much effort into reviving you to let you get killed on the home stretch. Too risky." Her tone was too light for a person who had just taken a life of another; it unnerved me. But she seemed completely unperturbed as she gave me an idle smile. "Now, are you ready to get off this station?"

"Tell me about Project Lazarus," I demanded, not moving. "Tell me about Cerberus."

Jacob tensed, but Miranda rolled her eyes, the same lazy smile playing on her lips. I got a feeling that this smile was just as deceiving as Wilson's shifty tactics. Miranda wasn't kind. She was deadly.

"Ah, Jacob…" she drawled. "Should have known your conscience would get the better of you."

"Lying to the Commander isn't the way to get her join our cause."

Miranda's face told me that she had a different opinion on the matter. But she contained her ire and smiled at me patiently. "Well, since we're all sharing secrets, apparently, please, do tell, what is it that you wish to know?"

"You were the ranking officer here? You oversaw the Project?"

"That's right," she nodded pensively. "I've put two years of my life into this research. Into you." Her words caressed me, the way she spoke them, sending shivers down my spine.

"Why?" I echoed. "What's in it for you? For your boss?"

"Why don't you ask him?" she stonewalled me. "My interests are Cerberus's. I'm sure the Illusive Man will relay his plans to you." The possibility of meeting a gargantuan terrorist made me want to weasel out of the lie as soon as possible. "The sooner we leave, the sooner you'll get your answers."

She had no idea how far from the truth that was. Looking around uncertainly, I wondered, "What about other people on the station?"

"This is the evac here. If they aren't here, they're probably dead or soon to be."

Her heartless words almost made me twist my lips in a grim smile at the irony — she had no way of knowing that but a few minutes ago the man she'd killed was contemplating to leave her behind for the exactly same reason. I looked around wistfully.

Mistaking my dejected acceptance of the morbid reality for idealistic stubbornness, Miranda stepped closer to me, speaking heatedly, "Don't you _**get**_ it? No one else matters. Everyone is expandable. You're the only one worth saving."

I looked away, feeling rotten. They were trying to save me, thinking me a success, someone important, when I was but a shadow of whatever they had been trying to achieve. A fraud.

"She's right, Shepard," Jacob interjected. "We knew it was a dangerous job when we signed up. Don't mull over this."

"So are you ready to get out of here or not?" Miranda demanded impatiently. "'Cause if you want to stay here and rot, be my guest." Her tone spoke of the opposite: that if I had chosen to stay, she'd knock me out and drag me onto the shuttle against my will and have no problem with that."

I simply nodded and followed them both into the shuttle and sat opposite of them, hugging myself. As it took off, I looked away from the window to avoid having another fit in front of them both at the sight of open space. I would be hard pressed to explain that one.

"Where have you been during all that time?" Taylor asked her quietly. "I couldn't raise you."

"Wilson figured out I was helping Shepard," she responded with a scowl, as if she was referring to a minor nuisance. "He sent a small squad of mechs to take me out. I dealt with them and reached you just in time for a dramatic entrance." Taylor smirked, and Miranda set her eyes on me. "What about you?" she demanded. "You were pretty out of it in the med bay."

"My muscles felt petrified. I stull hurt," I explained curtly. "I would like some water too." I added after some consideration.

Miranda smiled faintly and nodded for Jacob to fetch me some, not moving an inch otherwise. He complied and I looked at him gratefully, accepting a glass from his hands. As it hit my tongue, it seemed like a blessing that I would never have enough of. I was too embarrassed to beg for more.

"Damned traitor," Miranda commented meanwhile. "He must have replaced your medications with placebo: your awakening was a matter of weeks and we had you on muscle stimulants and hydrated you properly, we're not amateurs. He was trying to get you killed, and almost succeeded at that. Bastard." She sighed irritably, obviously put out by the notion that someone had been given a reason to doubt that her work was anything short of impeccable. Taylor's thoughts, it seemed, ran along with mine, as he was smiling with amusement.

"No matter," Miranda interrupted herself: unlike her lieutenant she seemed to like talking a lot, probably one of those love-the-sounf-of-my-own-voice types. I didn't mind. I loved the sound of her voice too. "I just have a few questions for you, Shepard, to evaluate your condition before you meet the Illusive Man."

My heart sunk in terror and I stared at her, feeling trapped. Jacob, ever empathic, rose to my help even then. "Come on, Miranda, more tests? Doesn't she seem fine to you? She took out the mechs without any trouble." That was a total lie, the way I looked at it, but I was grateful for it nonetheless. "She's perfectly alright."

"Unfortunately, _'Perfectly alright'_ is not a medically sound dyagnosis. We need to know that her personality and memories are intact; that was the objective. The sooner we confirm it, the sooner all can rest."

I closed my eyes gravely. And here it was, the charade was finally over. No way to pretend I was fine and capable anymore. I looked at them both intently — here were the people I was about to entrust my life with. A tight-lipped soldier who resented his own employer, if my intuition was anything to go by, and an outrageously beautiful woman who had killed her co-worker of two years in cold blood without blinking. I shook my head, trying to concentrate on good things instead: on Jacob's compassion, and the sense of safety that Miranda instilled in me, or at least had instilled while I'd been under her care. I prayed I could trust _**that**_.

"Let's start with the most recent events. On the Citadel," Miranda began, checking with the notes on her omni-tool, "after the destruction of the Destiny Ascension, what became of the Council?"

There was a sucking feeling in my gut. Somehow, I didn't want to disappoint her. And I was about to. "I don't know," I said.

She frowned. "What do you mean? You don't remember?"

"I don't remember," I echoed, nodding gravely once in accession.

"Donnel Udina," Jacob said helpfully, "former human ambassador. He became a human councilor in a newly appointed mix-raced one. He's doing as well a job as possible, as expected."

The name sounded unfamiliar; his judgment of the man told me nothing. I expressed no reaction.

"What else don't you remember?" Miranda demanded, exchanging alarmed glances with Jacob. "Any particular gaps that stand out?"

It was almost funny the way she asked it, the irony of her question. Yet I was past the point where I would burst into hysterical laughter. Instead, I was overcome with dull inertia. My face expressionless, I shrugged. "I don't know?"

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Miranda stared at me, her blue eyes worried and angry at once. "Do you remember the Sovereign?"

"No." It was the simplest answer possible, yet it made her pale beyond the ivory hue of her skin. Apparently, it was also the wrong kind of answer.

"Where did you serve?" she asked quietly, subdued all of a sudden. I shrugged, regarding her with pity. I didn't know anything about myself, and after the tumultuous events of the day I no longer cared. She did, and she was in for devastating answers. "Where were you born? When? What ship did you serve on?" Becoming incensed with my lack of reciprocity, Miranda was ready to bombard me with more questions, but Jacob put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

"Miranda, that's enough," he spoke with wistful sensibility. Turning to look at me he asked the most level-headed question yet. "What _**do**_ you remember, Shepard?"

I looked at his sympathetic face and liked him for it. There was no guilt of being a disappointment when I spoke to him. So, avoiding to look at Miranda, I said softly, "Nothing."

"Nothing?" she echoed in a dead voice. "Can you elaborate on that because this is no topic for exaggeration."

I sighed and recounted with slight irritation. "I remember how to speak and walk and open doors. I apparently remember how to shoot a pistol and use biotics — which I didn't even recall having until I accidentally pulled a mech up in the air. I remember how many planets there are in the Sol system, and how many moons each of them has, because it occurred to me to think on that. What I don't remember is anything concerning my life prior to this day. Is that a satisfying enough answer?"

The silence was deafening. I looked away and winced at the glimpse of the space, casting my eyes into the floor instead.

"Shepard?" Miranda was not to be muted, stubborn till the end. The bitter thought occurred to me, because there was still a flicker of hope in her voice as she waited for me to look up. "What's your name?"

My heart heavy, the depression from understanding the gravity of my situation having returned to me, I uttered, "I don't know."

I didn't know even that.


End file.
